Historical Horology – Bell & Ross

Often in our Historical Horology posts, we go delving back in to the history of a brand, or even of a specific model/lineup from a brand. In today’s look at Bell & Ross, however, we’re going to stick a little closer to current day.
Then again, when you have a brand that was founded in 1993, there’s not a lot of history to go digging through. At the start, however, they had a great way of getting their foot in the door – they teamed up with Sinn, resulting in some rather interesting designs, of which the B&R 103 (pictured below) is one.

Sure, purists may want to turn their nose up at such a collaboration, but it is part of the brand’s unique history – and as far as collaborations go, Sinn is a great one to be teamed up with.

In 1996, they came up with what could be considered the tool watch of tool watches – one intended to be worn by bomb disposal technicians. This is a watch that was designed specifically for the French Security Services (makes sense, since B&R is a French company). While I couldn’t find any reports of how it fared in the field, it’s an intriguing use case, for sure (as evidenced by this watch).

The partnership with Sinn continued a mere nine years, until 2002. It was at that point that B&R was purchased by Chanel. While you might argue that things are a touch more aesthetically driven, it has given us some very iconic and recognizable watches.

If you want to check out some more on the brand, I’ll refer you to this great article over at Wound for Life, as well as the brand’s own history pages. Just goes to show that even relatively young brands can have some interesting tidbits in their history!